What happens when you think Fox News is what free and independent media is all about

[MinnesotaNorthStar]

Re: What happens when you think Fox News is what free and independent media is all about

Re: What happens when you think Fox News is what free and independent media is all about

It's all Woodward and Bernstein's fault....

 

[ScottM]

Re: What happens when you think Fox News is what free and independent media is all about

Re: What happens when you think Fox News is what free and independent media is all about

She smeared her by asking her what she reads on a daily basis? You actually believe that? You don't think that's a legitimate question for a Vice Presidential candidate?

I think the "insult" was more that Sarah probably can't read without moving her lips. "Ya know, by golly, those big words are tools of the devil and he'll try to trip ya up."

 

[Foxton]

Re: What happens when you think Fox News is what free and independent media is all about

Re: What happens when you think Fox News is what free and independent media is all about

I think the "insult" was more that Sarah probably can't read without moving her lips. "Ya know, by golly, those big words are tools of the devil and he'll try to trip ya up."

Which is why you ***** about teleprompters and make cliffnotes on your hands. That's how real americans do it by golly!

 

[St. Clown]

Re: What happens when you think Fox News is what free and independent media is all about

Re: What happens when you think Fox News is what free and independent media is all about

It's all Woodward and Bernstein's fault....

Well, there is a hint of truth to that. Prior to their breaking of Watergate, presidents would get away with a lot more than a president can get away with now, all politicians for that matter. Would FDR have been able to hide his polio affliction even without television? Take television out of the equation, and the answer would still be no. Such a "cover up" would be seen as a scandal, that he was trying to cheat the American electorate. Would Ike have been able to go golfing nearly as often now as he did during his term in the 50's? No, it would be whipped up into a scandal of some sort of mis-allocation of gov't funds - just look at the heavy criticism both President Bush 43 and President Obama have gone through for their vacation choices. It's ridiculous!

Prior to the Watergate story, most political reporting was based upon issues. Now it's heavily influenced by scooping the next big scandal, either presented to them by that politician's opposition party or a motivated investigative journalist.

Political journalism lacks the merit it once carried. It's part of the many reasons that Americans cannot speak knowledgeably on most political issues. But they can tell with whom President Clinton spent time in the Oval Office while the wife left town.

 

[Old Pio]

Re: What happens when you think Fox News is what free and independent media is all about

Re: What happens when you think Fox News is what free and independent media is all about

Well, there is a hint of truth to that. Prior to their breaking of Watergate, presidents would get away with a lot more than a president can get away with now, all politicians for that matter. Would FDR have been able to hide his polio affliction even without television? Take television out of the equation, and the answer would still be no. Such a "cover up" would be seen as a scandal, that he was trying to cheat the American electorate. Would Ike have been able to go golfing nearly as often now as he did during his term in the 50's? No, it would be whipped up into a scandal of some sort of mis-allocation of gov't funds - just look at the heavy criticism both President Bush 43 and President Obama have gone through for their vacation choices. It's ridiculous!

Prior to the Watergate story, most political reporting was based upon issues. Now it's heavily influenced by scooping the next big scandal, either presented to them by that politician's opposition party or a motivated investigative journalist.

Political journalism lacks the merit it once carried. It's part of the many reasons that Americans cannot speak knowledgeably on most political issues. But they can tell with whom President Clinton spent time in the Oval Office while the wife left town.

Most Americans were only vaguely aware of FDR's handicap. It wasn't a secret, it just wasn't discussed. It's my understanding that despite 13 years in the WH, there's only one very short clip of him walking. All of the other film shows him standing or sitting (frequently in the back of a car).

Those of you old enough compare that with the coverage of George Wallace in his wheelchair. The media (who admittedly liked FDR and didn't like Wallace) took every opportunity of showing the governor being hoisted up some stairs or otherwise dealing with his handicap awkwardly. I think modern coverage would be far closer to the latter than the former. Although in the intervening decades we've come to understand that being in a wheelchair isn't a disqualification to live in the WH.

The far greater scandal here was the fact that FDR was a dying man in '44 and many many people knew it, some in the media. The fact that his illness was kept from the electorate was an epic hoax and would be much harder to duplicate today. My God, check out the late newsreels of Roosevelt. He looked awful. It just wouldn't be possible today to dodge the questions of why he looked so bad.

Remember when the first big revelations about Clinton/Lewinsky hit the networks? They were all down in Havana (I think the Pope was coming to visit Fidel) but when the news popped, they were all out of Dodge in a heartbeat. All sensing the next Watergate. During the Kennedy administration Chicago mobster Sam Giancanna was pimping for the president and using the girl, Judith Campbell Exner, as a go beteween. One of JFK's punchboards (Elle Rometsch) was quite possibly an East German spy. She was hustled out of the country by the Attorney General before it could become a scandal. Fortunately for JFK the AG was his brother. None of this was of any interest to the elite media. Neither, apparantly, were his considerable health problems including Addison's disease and a 400 cholesteral count (oh, and don't forget the meth).

Certainly people aspiring to be elite journalists have been profoundly affected by Watergate and they all want to be the next Woodstein. Who wouldn't? Some, Blair, Cooke and Glass come to mind, have decided they can be elite journalists without actually having a real story to report on. Some, like Walter Duranty, have decided to lie in service of a totalitarian monster like Stalin (although he obviously predated Watergate).

 

[dropthatpuck]

Re: What happens when you think Fox News is what free and independent media is all about

Re: What happens when you think Fox News is what free and independent media is all about

Quite possibly the funniest thread title ever.

 

[LynahFan]

Re: What happens when you think Fox News is what free and independent media is all about

Re: What happens when you think Fox News is what free and independent media is all about

The far greater scandal here was the fact that FDR was a dying man in '44 and many many people knew it, some in the media. The fact that his illness was kept from the electorate was an epic hoax and would be much harder to duplicate today. My God, check out the late newsreels of Roosevelt. He looked awful. It just wouldn't be possible today to dodge the questions of why he looked so bad.

In what sense was this a "scandal?" In 1944, the country absolutely needed Roosevelt to be re-elected, regardless of his health. In my travels around Europe, I've lost track of how many things are named after him. Roosevelt, Churchill, and (to a necessarily lesser extent, being in exile) De Gaulle were the great triumvirate who guided the allies through WW2. His stepping down in 1944 would have had a far greater negative impact on American and Allied psyche than anything Hitler could have done at that point, so running for president was the right thing to do at the time. If people in the press actively participated in a cover up, then they did so knowing that it was the patriotic thing to do.

You're correct that it would be harder to duplicate today, since so few people seem to put country above self and career aspirations. Sadly, it generally seems to take great tragedies (remember the national mood after 9/11) to bring out that feeling, but that does at least give hope that the glimmer is still there and could be re-kindled when the time called for it.

 

[Bakunin]

Re: What happens when you think Fox News is what free and independent media is all about

Re: What happens when you think Fox News is what free and independent media is all about

I think the questions asked by the media of various politicians has less to do with bias and more to do with the media outlet's own self interest. If you want certain guests to come back to be interviewed in the future, you have to be very careful about how hard you choose to go after them. Keep in mind that all politicians are obsessed with controlling their image and their message - and if they feel either is threatened by a particular program or network, they are going to avoid that program / network like the plague.

Where bias comes into play is the coverage itself - which stories to talk about, which elements of a proposal to fixate on, etc. If you're biased to the left, for example, you'd focus on the percentage of people who are uninsured during the healthcare debate. If you are biased to the right, you'll talk about how much it'll cost the taxpayers to insure these people, or you'll talk about the regulatory overload likely to happen in any government-run program. Even if the media was even-handed and acknowledged all of the angles, it'd still choose to emphasize different things which would lead to accusations of bias and favoritism.

 

[alfablue]

Re: What happens when you think Fox News is what free and independent media is all about

Re: What happens when you think Fox News is what free and independent media is all about

Well, there is a hint of truth to that. Prior to their breaking of Watergate, presidents would get away with a lot more than a president can get away with now, all politicians for that matter. Would FDR have been able to hide his polio affliction even without television? Take television out of the equation, and the answer would still be no. Such a "cover up" would be seen as a scandal, that he was trying to cheat the American electorate. Would Ike have been able to go golfing nearly as often now as he did during his term in the 50's? No, it would be whipped up into a scandal of some sort of mis-allocation of gov't funds - just look at the heavy criticism both President Bush 43 and President Obama have gone through for their vacation choices. It's ridiculous!

Prior to the Watergate story, most political reporting was based upon issues. Now it's heavily influenced by scooping the next big scandal, either presented to them by that politician's opposition party or a motivated investigative journalist.

Political journalism lacks the merit it once carried. It's part of the many reasons that Americans cannot speak knowledgeably on most political issues. But they can tell with whom President Clinton spent time in the Oval Office while the wife left town.

And I think it's really lowered the bar for election coverage quite badly. Nobody is aksing the obvious questions, and nobody seems to mind that there's more coverage of a candidates personal life than of their positions, opinions, and how they wants to fix the problems they see.

Really made me mad a few weeks ago when our local public station was giving 3 min of free air time to all candidates. The two I heard (and I have no idea what affiliation they had) briefly said all the buzz words- jobs, taxes, govenment, new- without going into ANY detail of what they specifically thought was wrong and specifically how they would fix it. Then they both spend 2:30 talking about their family and passions.

A complete waste of my time.

And I was stunned to see some of the "platforms" that people were pretending to run on- something, not specific, is broken, and I'm going to fix it..... that was it. Are you kidding me?

AFAIKT, both sides are currently equally pathetic. And there's more than enough bias to spread across not only the ends, but the middle, so that nothing gets hunted down as specific problems and specific solutions.

Sad what the supposed 4th branch has become.

It's almost to the point that even taking Obama's suggestion to listen to both sides of the media debate (UM 2010 Commencement speech) is a general waste of time- since they are not actually saying anything, but just trying to YELL LOUDER THAN THE OTHER REPORTER.

 

[Tiggsy]

Re: What happens when you think Fox News is what free and independent media is all about

Re: What happens when you think Fox News is what free and independent media is all about

She smeared her by asking her what she reads on a daily basis? You actually believe that? You don't think that's a legitimate question for a Vice Presidential candidate?

Smear? Maybe not, but it was a stupid question. Why do people care if she reads a newspaper or not? What's next, asking what she has for breakfast? People can't vote for her because she eats oatmeal twice a week? Where is that line drawn? It wasn't a gotcha question until she flubbed it. It was just a stupid question because had she answered clearly, no one would have thought twice about it.

 

[Rover]

Re: What happens when you think Fox News is what free and independent media is all about

Re: What happens when you think Fox News is what free and independent media is all about

The problem with media coverage to me is that they all want to be Woodward & Bernstein, but none of them actually want to do the work required to break a big story.

So, what end up having is a bunch of Judith Millers - reporters selling their columns for "access" to top officials and scoops. It doesn't require any heavy lifting, but you get your column on the front page. Its not too much more complicated than that.

Lee Atwater, whatever you think of him or his ideology, figured this out 30 years ago. He realized that media people almost to a person were lazy and stupid, and would print any juicy story and not bother to research whether it was true or not before they ran with it. Then before one or two did get around to verify, he'd give them another juicy story a week later for them to chew on. That's why IMHO all these claims of bias are irrelevant. A good campaign no matter its ideology can manipulate the press like a harp from hell. For whatever reason, good people left journalism a long, long time ago.

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: What happens when you think Fox News is what free and independent media is all about

Re: What happens when you think Fox News is what free and independent media is all about

Smear? Maybe not, but it was a stupid question. Why do people care if she reads a newspaper or not? What's next, asking what she has for breakfast? People can't vote for her because she eats oatmeal twice a week? Where is that line drawn? It wasn't a gotcha question until she flubbed it. It was just a stupid question because had she answered clearly, no one would have thought twice about it.

So, you buy Palin's persecution complex?

It was a valid question. Period.

 

[rufus]

Re: What happens when you think Fox News is what free and independent media is all about

Re: What happens when you think Fox News is what free and independent media is all about

If you are biased to the right, you'll talk about how Democrats are gonna kill Gran-maw, and turn the country into a Communist/Socialist nanny-state.

FYP.

 

[rufus]

Re: What happens when you think Fox News is what free and independent media is all about

Re: What happens when you think Fox News is what free and independent media is all about

Smear? Maybe not, but it was a stupid question. Why do people care if she reads a newspaper or not? What's next, asking what she has for breakfast? People can't vote for her because she eats oatmeal twice a week? Where is that line drawn? It wasn't a gotcha question until she flubbed it. It was just a stupid question because had she answered clearly, no one would have thought twice about it.

But it revealed how absolutely vacuous and unready for the position she was, because she couldn't even answer such a simple, stupid question clearly.

 

[Shirtless Guy]

Re: What happens when you think Fox News is what free and independent media is all about

Re: What happens when you think Fox News is what free and independent media is all about

The problem with media coverage to me is that they all want to be Woodward & Bernstein, but none of them actually want to do the work required to break a big story.

So, what end up having is a bunch of Judith Millers - reporters selling their columns for "access" to top officials and scoops. It doesn't require any heavy lifting, but you get your column on the front page. Its not too much more complicated than that.

Lee Atwater, whatever you think of him or his ideology, figured this out 30 years ago. He realized that media people almost to a person were lazy and stupid, and would print any juicy story and not bother to research whether it was true or not before they ran with it. Then before one or two did get around to verify, he'd give them another juicy story a week later for them to chew on. That's why IMHO all these claims of bias are irrelevant. A good campaign no matter its ideology can manipulate the press like a harp from hell. For whatever reason, good people left journalism a long, long time ago.

I would think this comes from the results driven side of things. People don't have weeks or months to dig into a story to get the facts straight and figure things out because we need ratings/headlines today. That and the majority of people reading what the journalists have to say or watching what the news outlets have to say are lazy and stupid.

 

[Bakunin]

Re: What happens when you think Fox News is what free and independent media is all about

Re: What happens when you think Fox News is what free and independent media is all about

It was a valid question. Period.

The end doesn't justify the means.

Asking a stupid question that would have added nothing to the knowledge of a candidate isn't justified because it happened to trip the candidate up and make him/her look stupid. My contention is that any question has the potential of doing that, so the interviewer owes it to us to ask better questions than "what do you read?" That question is only a step or two above the infamous "boxers or briefs" asked of Clinton by MTV years ago.

 

[Jon]

Re: What happens when you think Fox News is what free and independent media is all about

Re: What happens when you think Fox News is what free and independent media is all about

Quite possibly the funniest thread title ever.

WRONG.

Army for COTY

Sigh....

 

[Rover]

Re: What happens when you think Fox News is what free and independent media is all about

Re: What happens when you think Fox News is what free and independent media is all about

I would think this comes from the results driven side of things. People don't have weeks or months to dig into a story to get the facts straight and figure things out because we need ratings/headlines today. That and the majority of people reading what the journalists have to say or watching what the news outlets have to say are lazy and stupid.

Depends on the story, but point taken. Its certainly an accelerated news cycle. However, they could still go back and do some basic verfication.

Two recent examples - Richard Blumenthal and Mark Kirk. Reporter broke story fed to him by McMahon campaign about Blumenthal shading Vietnam service. So far so good. The problem is the reporter didn't bother to see if the edited version of the tape supplied to him told the whole story. When that first came out, I like a lot of people thought he was DOA, as the insinuation was the he was pulling a Tim Johnson (ex big league manager) and telling people that he was Rambo back in 'Nam. Had the story told the fuller version of the truth (that he had a tendency to make it look like he might have been there when speaking to vets groups) he might still be DOA, but the sloppiness of the story saved his hide. Not to mention the laughable and minor, minor story about him lying about being on the Harvard swim team. Turns out the next day a yearbook photo came out showing the guy with a big H on this chest and a caption saying Blumenthal dives in during HU-Princeton meet. The reporter couldn't have found that out himself? Worse, when this came out, the paper (NYT) STILL stood by this point in their story.

Kirk is another one. Cleary its take the man down season in the Sun Times I believe. After also being busted for shading his military service, there's some headline saying he lied about being rescued from the lake as a kid. That implies to me the incident never happened. Turns out he got wrong how long he was in the water (less than an hour vs 2 or something) and what time of day it was. You know, 40 years later, maybe I'm inclined to cut the guy some slack despite his party affiliation. This is hack journalism as in both cases a reporter is trying to make a name for himself by using unverified information to take somebody down. No wonder journalists rate below used car salesmen on the list of trustworthy professions.

 

[WeWantMore]

Re: What happens when you think Fox News is what free and independent media is all about

Re: What happens when you think Fox News is what free and independent media is all about

Free and independent media eh? Like Journolist for instance?

 

[IrishHockeyFan]

Re: What happens when you think Fox News is what free and independent media is all about

Re: What happens when you think Fox News is what free and independent media is all about

Smear? Maybe not, but it was a stupid question. Why do people care if she reads a newspaper or not? What's next, asking what she has for breakfast? People can't vote for her because she eats oatmeal twice a week? Where is that line drawn? It wasn't a gotcha question until she flubbed it. It was just a stupid question because had she answered clearly, no one would have thought twice about it.

But what she eats for breakfast doesn't matter. Corn flakes, oatmeal, or a bagel and coffee had no impact on how she dealt with the chores of her job as governor or how she would have done as a veep or president. But wanting to know if she has the intellectual curiosity to crack open a book, or read a couple of newspapers on a regular basis to stay informed, or a newsweekly or perhaps some other periodicals to explore some of the issues of the day a little more deeply? I think that may have a great deal of effect on how well she functions as an executive.

It wasn't a stupid question because she failed to answer it clearly -- something that I'm willing to bet the vast majority of thinking people would have had no trouble answering quite easily -- it was a simple question that had she answered it clearly could have provided some needed insight to how she comes around to her thinking. How hard would it have been to say "I read all of Alaska's daily newspapers and the bible every day." In one sentence she lets us know she values keeping up to date on the issues important to her state, and appeals to the Christian right.